Now Playing on K-Earth - Classic Rock! (Well, sorta...)

[michael hagerty]

Michael, I'm not suggesting that KOLA play any Beatles songs. And if Mister oldies76 is suggesting that, he should be reminded that most of the Let It Be album was recorded in January 1969. Abbey Road, although released earlier than Let It Be, was the Beatles' actual last album.

In the case of KOLA, why isn't the station playing songs and artists instead of just "decades"? Has KOLA asked if any listeners want to still hear some 1960s songs? Who decided that nothing before 1970 would ever get played again? Sirius XM Satellite Radio has gotten many complaints over the years from people trying to figure out the logic in the playlists of the various channels, such as Deep Tracks, Classic Rewind and Classic Vinyl. They wonder why (for example) Elton John's early hits are on one channel, his '80s-'90s hits are on another channel, and his more recent songs are on another channel. Why can't all of Elton's hits be on a single channel? In the case of KOLA, they'll play (for example) the Rolling Stones' Miss You and Start Me Up but not Paint It Black or Honky Tonk Women. Where is the logic?

(I'm expecting that David will now come up with several examples of illogical playlists and how they affected the ratings. )

Where do I start?

KOLA does research. Have been for years. Very likely this direction comes from seeing that not many 30-40 year olds had huge positive responses to 60s music (the newest of which is 44 years old). Also very likely the positives go up with age, meaning that including 60s music in the new approach buys you little with the people you want most and attracts people who will only drive up your average audience age.

I'll skip Sirius/XM. Their channel programming is beyond comprehension and changes frequently.


Why "Miss You" instead of "Honky Tonk Women"? Because it IS about the song...and how the song fits with every other song on the playlist. If it weren't for Mick's vocal, it'd be hard to tell the two songs were by the same band.

But it's not purely about Stones from the 70s being okay. Don't count on hearing "Angie" anytime soon. It's about songs that support the rhythmic lean of a primarily 80s-90s mix...and that tests well.

With whom? Well, in the Inland Empire in 2013, I'd say the dead center of the target is probably a female of Hispanic descent born in 1978. Those 70s tracks are there for seasoning. They're not high school favorites. Those are the 90s tracks.

 

[michael hagerty]

Classic Hits has to move forward quickly or it starts sounding stodgy to 40-year old females who are listening to a lot more current stuff than they had been.

Have you heard any of the huge recent hits by Robin Thicke (Blurred Lines #1), Daft Punk (Get Lucky, currently #2), Bruno Mars (Locked Out of Heaven #1, Treasure, currently #8), Gotye (Somebody That I Used To Know #1), Justin Timberlake (Suit & Tie #3).....all very retro sounding, shades of late 70's and 80's and all top 10's.

If 40+ year old women are listening to these and other currents..you wonder if it ties in with what they listened to in their youth? Just a thought. Music has improved much of late, especially since 2011.

Yep. Listening to much more CHR myself these days. A lot of good stuff.

Some of it may be retro influence...but remember, if Mom's 40, she was born in 1973...her high school stuff is 1987-1991. More likely, because it's a repeating cycle, it's that it's music mom and daughter are able to enjoy together.

 

[michael hagerty]

Michael, I'm not suggesting that KOLA play any Beatles songs. And if Mister oldies76 is suggesting that, he should be reminded that most of the Let It Be album was recorded in January 1969. Abbey Road, although released earlier than Let It Be, was the Beatles' actual last album.

I was going by their peak dates on Billboard, both #1's in 1970. But there's always "Free As A Bird" or "Real Love" ;D

The aforementioned overdubs of Lennon demos.

 

[Thomps2525]

Michael: An excellent analysis of KOLA's format. So many of us consider the 1960s to be the best decade for music, we're understandably saddened to see '60s music disappear from radio. TLC and Alanis Morissette replacing Elvis and the Beatles. *Sigh*

Mister oldies76: Can KOLA play Got To Get You Into My Life, which was a top-ten hit in 1976, a decade after its original appearance on an album? Can they play What A Wonderful World? Do they consider it a 1968 hit or a 1988 hit? And what about Benny Bell's Shaving Cream? 1946 or 1975?

Not that I really expect any station today to play Shaving Cream---although, with lines such as "Dip your head in a bucket of sh...aving cream," the song is just begging for a hip-hop remake.

 

[michael hagerty]

Michael: An excellent analysis of KOLA's format. So many of us consider the 1960s to be the best decade for music, we're understandably saddened to see '60s music disappear from radio. TLC and Alanis Morissette replacing Elvis and the Beatles. *Sigh*

Mister oldies76: Can KOLA play Got To Get You Into My Life, which was a top-ten hit in 1976, a decade after its original appearance on an album? Can they play What A Wonderful World? Do they consider it a 1968 hit or a 1988 hit? And what about Benny Bell's Shaving Cream? 1946 or 1975?

Not that I really expect any station today to play Shaving Cream---although, with lines such as "Dip your head in a bucket of sh...aving cream," the song is just begging for a hip-hop remake.

Steve: Thanks, but your second paragraph says you didn't get it. A 1966 record that charted in 1976 is still irrelevant to a listener born in 1978.

Now, the Earth, Wind & Fire version...that would seem to be a good fit with what KOLA's doing.

You had to be kidding about the Louis Armstrong, so I'll just leave that one alone.

 

[semoochie]

Almost no one had heard "Wonderful World" until "Good Morning, Vietnam!" came out. Calling it a "hit" in the 60s is really a stretch.

 

[michael hagerty]

Almost no one had heard "Wonderful World" until "Good Morning, Vietnam!" came out. Calling it a "hit" in the 60s is really a stretch.

It was not a hit in the 60s. In fact, MOR stations barely gave it a spin back then.

But...one more time...when a record charted...and where it peaked...is irrelevant to the average listener. Doesn't really matter that "It's A Wonderful World" did well 25 years ago. It was largely an adult-appealing record then, and our 40-year old mom was 15, our 35-year old Mom (KOLA's apparent target) was 10, and all that counts is whether they want to hear it mixed in with Santana, Al B Sure and Green Day today.

 

[ChannelFlipper]

I suggest being careful not to consider all of this "oldies" music as strictly fitting under categories that you use to shelf them in your studio.  For instance, the Beatles' sound changed drastically in just a few years.  To treat it all as following some trend you've placed on a particular decade, or treating all releases by a particular artist the same, means you really don't get the music for its own sake.  I think a lot of the later Beatles material, and their subsequent solo efforts, would blend in well with "80s and 90s" music, since much of it was "ahead of its time" anyway.

Also, limiting yourself to the top five or ten on the Billboard chart will cut off plenty of material that I'm sure would 'test well.'  It's just like with the movies - some weeks there's a lot of strong competition, but that doesn't make a song that only charted to #11 a "dog," when it was up against stifffer competition then it might have found a few months later. 
The music has to speak for itself, not the categories you shelf it in. 

Goldilocks:

It's less arbitrary than that.

First, it's about flow, and as ahead of their time as the Beatles were, I'm having trouble thinking of one of their songs that predicted the sound of 80s and 90s music or fits in well with it.

Actually the Beatles made a big splash in 1986 by having "Twist and Shout" featured prominently in one of the decade's top movies "Ferris Buhler's Day Off". Record got a lot of airplay and re-charted.

Which had more to do with the popularity of the movie than the record fitting well with then-current music (as did "Unchained Melody" in "Ghost").

If it tests, great.

My friends, Michael has performed a valuable service for us by summarizing everything that is wrong about music radio in just four short words:

If it tests, great.

I cannot add anything more than that. Bravo.

 

[michael hagerty]

I suggest being careful not to consider all of this "oldies" music as strictly fitting under categories that you use to shelf them in your studio. For instance, the Beatles' sound changed drastically in just a few years. To treat it all as following some trend you've placed on a particular decade, or treating all releases by a particular artist the same, means you really don't get the music for its own sake. I think a lot of the later Beatles material, and their subsequent solo efforts, would blend in well with "80s and 90s" music, since much of it was "ahead of its time" anyway.

Also, limiting yourself to the top five or ten on the Billboard chart will cut off plenty of material that I'm sure would 'test well.' It's just like with the movies - some weeks there's a lot of strong competition, but that doesn't make a song that only charted to #11 a "dog," when it was up against stifffer competition then it might have found a few months later.
The music has to speak for itself, not the categories you shelf it in.

Goldilocks:

It's less arbitrary than that.

First, it's about flow, and as ahead of their time as the Beatles were, I'm having trouble thinking of one of their songs that predicted the sound of 80s and 90s music or fits in well with it.

Actually the Beatles made a big splash in 1986 by having "Twist and Shout" featured prominently in one of the decade's top movies "Ferris Buhler's Day Off". Record got a lot of airplay and re-charted.

Which had more to do with the popularity of the movie than the record fitting well with then-current music (as did "Unchained Melody" in "Ghost").

If it tests, great.

My friends, Michael has performed a valuable service for us by summarizing everything that is wrong about music radio in just four short words:

If it tests, great.

I cannot add anything more than that. Bravo.

What, somehow music radio would be better if it played songs more of its listeners have indicated they don't want to hear?

 

[ChannelFlipper]

I suggest being careful not to consider all of this "oldies" music as strictly fitting under categories that you use to shelf them in your studio. For instance, the Beatles' sound changed drastically in just a few years. To treat it all as following some trend you've placed on a particular decade, or treating all releases by a particular artist the same, means you really don't get the music for its own sake. I think a lot of the later Beatles material, and their subsequent solo efforts, would blend in well with "80s and 90s" music, since much of it was "ahead of its time" anyway.

Also, limiting yourself to the top five or ten on the Billboard chart will cut off plenty of material that I'm sure would 'test well.' It's just like with the movies - some weeks there's a lot of strong competition, but that doesn't make a song that only charted to #11 a "dog," when it was up against stifffer competition then it might have found a few months later.
The music has to speak for itself, not the categories you shelf it in.

Goldilocks:

It's less arbitrary than that.

First, it's about flow, and as ahead of their time as the Beatles were, I'm having trouble thinking of one of their songs that predicted the sound of 80s and 90s music or fits in well with it.

Actually the Beatles made a big splash in 1986 by having "Twist and Shout" featured prominently in one of the decade's top movies "Ferris Buhler's Day Off". Record got a lot of airplay and re-charted.

Which had more to do with the popularity of the movie than the record fitting well with then-current music (as did "Unchained Melody" in "Ghost").

If it tests, great.

My friends, Michael has performed a valuable service for us by summarizing everything that is wrong about music radio in just four short words:

If it tests, great.

I cannot add anything more than that. Bravo.

What, somehow music radio would be better if it played songs more of its listeners have indicated they don't want to hear?

Now for my short one-word answer: Yes!

(You see the type of radio that is created when the tastes of the masses are followed.)

 

[michael hagerty]

I suggest being careful not to consider all of this "oldies" music as strictly fitting under categories that you use to shelf them in your studio. For instance, the Beatles' sound changed drastically in just a few years. To treat it all as following some trend you've placed on a particular decade, or treating all releases by a particular artist the same, means you really don't get the music for its own sake. I think a lot of the later Beatles material, and their subsequent solo efforts, would blend in well with "80s and 90s" music, since much of it was "ahead of its time" anyway.

Also, limiting yourself to the top five or ten on the Billboard chart will cut off plenty of material that I'm sure would 'test well.' It's just like with the movies - some weeks there's a lot of strong competition, but that doesn't make a song that only charted to #11 a "dog," when it was up against stifffer competition then it might have found a few months later.
The music has to speak for itself, not the categories you shelf it in.

Goldilocks:

It's less arbitrary than that.

First, it's about flow, and as ahead of their time as the Beatles were, I'm having trouble thinking of one of their songs that predicted the sound of 80s and 90s music or fits in well with it.

Actually the Beatles made a big splash in 1986 by having "Twist and Shout" featured prominently in one of the decade's top movies "Ferris Buhler's Day Off". Record got a lot of airplay and re-charted.

Which had more to do with the popularity of the movie than the record fitting well with then-current music (as did "Unchained Melody" in "Ghost").

If it tests, great.

My friends, Michael has performed a valuable service for us by summarizing everything that is wrong about music radio in just four short words:

If it tests, great.

I cannot add anything more than that. Bravo.

What, somehow music radio would be better if it played songs more of its listeners have indicated they don't want to hear?

Now for my short one-word answer: Yes!

(You see the type of radio that is created when the tastes of the masses are followed.)

Radio that wins in the ratings? Radio that bills enough to keep the power turned on and employees on the payroll?

 

[ChannelFlipper]

I suggest being careful not to consider all of this "oldies" music as strictly fitting under categories that you use to shelf them in your studio. For instance, the Beatles' sound changed drastically in just a few years. To treat it all as following some trend you've placed on a particular decade, or treating all releases by a particular artist the same, means you really don't get the music for its own sake. I think a lot of the later Beatles material, and their subsequent solo efforts, would blend in well with "80s and 90s" music, since much of it was "ahead of its time" anyway.

Also, limiting yourself to the top five or ten on the Billboard chart will cut off plenty of material that I'm sure would 'test well.' It's just like with the movies - some weeks there's a lot of strong competition, but that doesn't make a song that only charted to #11 a "dog," when it was up against stifffer competition then it might have found a few months later.
The music has to speak for itself, not the categories you shelf it in.

Goldilocks:

It's less arbitrary than that.

First, it's about flow, and as ahead of their time as the Beatles were, I'm having trouble thinking of one of their songs that predicted the sound of 80s and 90s music or fits in well with it.

Actually the Beatles made a big splash in 1986 by having "Twist and Shout" featured prominently in one of the decade's top movies "Ferris Buhler's Day Off". Record got a lot of airplay and re-charted.

Which had more to do with the popularity of the movie than the record fitting well with then-current music (as did "Unchained Melody" in "Ghost").

If it tests, great.

My friends, Michael has performed a valuable service for us by summarizing everything that is wrong about music radio in just four short words:

If it tests, great.

I cannot add anything more than that. Bravo.

What, somehow music radio would be better if it played songs more of its listeners have indicated they don't want to hear?

Now for my short one-word answer: Yes!

(You see the type of radio that is created when the tastes of the masses are followed.)

Radio that wins in the ratings? Radio that bills enough to keep the power turned on and employees on the payroll?

When KROQ went from AOR to New Wave did they do that because that's what their researched focus test groups told them? Or was it because they had great visionary programmers who saw the future and made it their own? If it was up to focus groups and research, great stations like KROQ (that have ridden the wave of that original vision for some thirty years) would have never occurred in the first place. It is now killing an entire genre of rock music, among others. Oh, but the masses want to hear it...

Riddle me this: Since PPM became a part of the radio landscape, what great stations have come along? They're absence is because no one is allowed to take a chance any more. As David and others have (correctly) said, each station is monitored minute by minute now, song by song, and there is no opportunity for chance taking, because no one is allowed to fail. Too much money riding on the investment so everyone must play it safe. Very safe. Researched-to-ensure-no-trip-ups safe.

If it is ratings you desire, we have no shortage of stations with good ratings (and no vision). If it is quality you desire, you might as well be stranded on an island.

 

[michael hagerty]

When KROQ went from AOR to New Wave did they do that because that's what their researched focus test groups told them? Or was it because they had great visionary programmers who saw the future and made it their own? If it was up to focus groups and research, great stations like KROQ (that have ridden the wave of that original vision for some thirty years) would have never occurred in the first place. It is now killing an entire genre of rock music, among others. Oh, but the masses want to hear it...

Riddle me this: Since PPM became a part of the radio landscape, what great stations have come along? They're absence is because no one is allowed to take a chance any more. As David and others have (correctly) said, each station is monitored minute by minute now, song by song, and there is no opportunity for chance taking, because no one is allowed to fail. Too much money riding on the investment so everyone must play it safe. Very safe. Researched-to-ensure-no-trip-ups safe.

If it is ratings you desire, we have no shortage of stations with good ratings (and no vision). If it is quality you desire, you might as well be stranded on an island.

Rick Carroll was a great, visionary programmer who as soon as he found his music mix, honed, refined and tightened it. KROQ under Rick was as disciplined and focused as KHJ or KKDJ...it just didn't sound like it because of the personality of the station and the type of music.

As for your "Since PPM" question...gotta define "great". It's a subjective term at best. What great stations came along in the 10 years immediately preceding PPM? How'd they do?

And "quality" is, when it comes to music and radio, another subjective term. My tastes are wildly eclectic, and have almost never been satisfied for more than a few minutes at a shot by commercial radio. But I know that there aren't enough people like me to keep a radio station alive. And I'm fortunate enough to live in a time where I have a huge number of commercial stations, their virtually commercial-free and looser HD2 streams, satellite radio, my entire music collection (if I choose) in my pocket via iPhone, as well as Pandora, iHeart and Spotify. So I don't feel the need to insist that a business make a bad business decision just to satisfy me.

 

[davideduardo]

My friends, Michael has performed a valuable service for us by summarizing everything that is wrong about music radio in just four short words:

If it tests, great.

I cannot add anything more than that. Bravo.

"Testing" is just a term for "asking the listeners what they like and what they don't like.

How can playing what the listeners do not like be "wrong about music radio"?

 

[davideduardo]

Riddle me this: Since PPM became a part of the radio landscape, what great stations have come along? They're absence is because no one is allowed to take a chance any more. an island.

That's really a bad, illogical question.

The PPM came to most markets between 2008 and 2010, in the middle of a recession where radio lost, at one point, 40% of its pre-recession billings.

Those same years up to the present are littered with foreclosures and lender assumptions, along with a reduction of perhaps a third of the folks working in radio before the recession.

Add the growth of smartphones... the first iPhone preceded the recession's "start" by just a few months... and the move to alternate distribution systems and you have a poor scenario for risk taking.

When risks are taken, it is usually due to having a surplus of working capital, or, the opposite, nothing to lose. Neither case has prevailed in radio: no company has excess cash flow and stations with nothing to lose tend to be sold or foreclosed on as there is no available financing for "dream development" in radio.

Remember, your KROQ example came from the period where FM had vastly less value, and there were only a couple of formats that were bringing on the revenues, so the other stations messed around with experimental formats.

Great innovations like the conversion of the deak KMET to KTWV occurred because Metromedia had lots of cash, could afford amazing "think tank" talent and was willing to take risks. That environment does not exist for the most part today... anywhere in the world.

 

[johndavis]

i haven't listened, but the description of KOLA sounds like it's going for today's mid-30s to mid 40s adult who grew up on stations like KIIS-FM, KROQ and Power 106. The Beatles weren't a factor.

That's an accurate statement. You know me, and this is the stuff I grew up on.

 

[michael hagerty]

i haven't listened, but the description of KOLA sounds like it's going for today's mid-30s to mid 40s adult who grew up on stations like KIIS-FM, KROQ and Power 106. The Beatles weren't a factor.

That's an accurate statement. You know me, and this is the stuff I grew up on.

Right, John.

Time's marching on.

 

[davideduardo]

Time's marching on.

Sometimes I think it is less of a march and more of a stampede.

 

[michael hagerty]

Time's marching on.

Sometimes I think it is less of a march and more of a stampede.

Well, as I said in one of the posts back there, the cycles are driving each other faster than I would have imagined. But that's happened every time Top 40/CHR has been accessible and friendly to adults. AC pushes its boundaries to keep from getting eaten and every other format that appeals to that demo has to play the same game.

 

[oldies76]

What, somehow music radio would be better if it played songs more of its listeners have indicated they don't want to hear?

So does every song that peaked in the top 20 from 1968 to 1985 be available for the auditorium testees, every time there's a session? Because if only 10% (if that) of all these charted songs are being played, that leaves approx. 90% that were rejected by the auditorium and I find that extremely hard to believe, under that scenario.